• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.68-76
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• 2018

A vortex tube is a simple energy separating device that splits a compressed air stream into a cold and hot stream without any external energy supply or chemical reactions. The efforts of many researchers and designers have been focused on improvement of vortex tube efficiency by changing the parameters affecting vortex tube operation. The effective parameters are nozzle specifications and inflow pressure conditions. Effects of different nozzle cross-sectional area and number of nozzles are evaluated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. In this study, CFD analysis of 3-D steady state and turbulent flow through a vortex tube was performed. We investigated the cold air mass flow rate, the cold air temperature, and the cold air heat transfer rate behavior of a vortex tube by utilizing seven straight nozzles and four inflow pressure conditions.